


Blossoming

by ThereIsOnlyZuul



Category: Archie Comics
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-10-22 10:01:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsOnlyZuul/pseuds/ThereIsOnlyZuul
Summary: Archie knocks up Cheryl Blossom and is suddenly out of Betty and Veronica’s life. Without Archie to make it a threesome, they find themselves alone and feelings beginning to develop. Had they fought so hard over Archie because they misunderstood their feelings for each other?





	1. Chapter 1

“Didja hear?” Reggie said as he slid into the worn vinyl of the booth that Pop Tate always made sure was free for his loyal Archie gang regulars. 

“Hear what?” Veronica asked without any real interest in the news. Nothing ever happened in Riverdale. Why get her hopes up? She would give Reggie the same amount of interest she was giving the fry she dragged over and over through the ketchup on her plate without ever eating it.

“It’s not about the chemistry test, is it?” Betty chewed nervously on her lip at the prospect of all that she’d already studied for becoming null and void because Mister Warren couldn’t make up his mind. Her chemistry textbook was opened in front of her, a billion little sticky note tabs stuck in it and a string of calculations doodled on the napkin her soda sat on top of.

“That test has been finalized for a week. I’ve got a photocopy of the answer sheet in my car if you want to take a peek,” Reggie said with the sneer that he claimed was actually a smile. 

“We don’t want anything from you, Reggie!” Veronica exclaimed, finally biting down on the fry she’d been absentmindedly fiddling with and, in turn, biting down on Reggie to keep him in line. “Just tell us whatever it is we need to hear and get over it!”

“Get over it?” Reggie said with a laugh. “Let’s see you take your own advice when I tell you what it is.” 

“Tell us what, Reggie?” Betty asked. Her face was mostly neutral. It was safer not to assume how to react to what Reggie had to say. He was excited by some truly cruel things and the smile on his face now might not be connected to something good at all. 

How right Betty was.

“Archie knocked up Cheryl Blossom!”

The seconds that ticked by felt to Betty and Veronica like the seconds watching a bomb drop from the sky. Reggie’s bit of news was Little Boy and Fat Man heading towards Hiroshima Betty and Nagasaki Veronica.

It was disbelief. It was denial. But then the bomb hit the ground, impacting and detonating with the force of atoms smashing together. And it was anger. The wall of their combined anger rolling over the countryside at the speed of sound, scorching anything in its way to a husk.

“He did what?” Both girls screamed, jumping up in the booth like mushroom clouds into the sky.

“This is so the reaction I was looking for,” Reggie said with a sadistic smile that stretched from ear to ear. If Reggie ever joined the army, he’d be right at home delivering drone strikes to desert villages. 

“Where is he?” Betty asked.

“I’ll kill him!” Veronica exclaimed.

“He’s currently shut up at home. Curtains drawn, car in garage, the full Andrews family pretending they don’t exist.”

“They’re going to get their wish when I get my hands on him,” Veronica huffed as she exited the booth. She slapped some money on the counter to cover the bill before making a beeline to the door. But she stopped before she exited the restaurant, turning back to Reggie with sudden suspicion. 

“Reggie, if you’re making this up–”

“Please Ronnie, don’t you trust me?”

“Oh brother,” Betty sighed as she collected up her books to follow after Veronica. “Like we haven’t been burned by that line from you before, Reggie.”

“Then don’t take my word for it. Hurt my pride and check your social media.”

Veronica was on her phone in a split second, rapidly scrolling, eyes darting over the screen. Reggie had trustworthy intel for once in his scummy life.

“Need a ride anywhere, ladies?” He asked as he watched the two girls go paler and paler as they read the news. “Back to my place for a stiff drink, perhaps?”

Betty came out of her disbelief to roll her eyes. “Like either of us need to be the next to announce a pregnancy.” 

“Implying we’d get that far given the chance?” Reggie sneered. He no doubt thought he was being charming but it came off as creepy.

“Reggie, you slimy bastard, I wouldn’t let you or your tiny mushroom dick anywhere near me!” The fire in Veronica’s eyes was something else. She was currently scarier than he was currently insulted, so he didn’t defend one his most important assets. 

Reggie simply shrugged and smirked, his default stance. “Listen Princess, I don’t know why you’re taking this anger out on me when you should be taking it out on Andrews.”

“You’re right, Reggie. This is totally misplaced.”

“Come on, Ronnie,” Betty said gently as she grabbed Veronica’s wrist and pulled her towards the exit. 

Betty had always been the diffuser when Veronica’s fuse started to burn. Today would be no exception, even though she herself wanted to blow just as badly. They could do that at her house in the privacy of her bedroom and save face though. No need to add to the drama. Especially with Reggie standing so nearby hoping to pen the drama like William bloody Shakespeare. 

“We’ll go to my place. Study for chem there. Okay?”

Veronica’s hand was shaking, but her reply was measured. She nodded her head ever so slightly before lifting her chin proudly and marching out of Pop’s with Betty in tow.

The bomb had dropped. The fallout was coming now.


	2. Chapter 2

It was true. The rumour mill of Riverdale High had actually produced something true. Not that it was much of a rumour, since Cheryl dropped the news herself, but she’d made up ridiculous stories before that had never come to anything besides the weird redhead brat wanting attention. It could have been bogus.

But then Cheryl started showing. A month after she’d begun saying she was pregnant and there was the proof. Reggie and his minions, true to the form of chaotic evil that they all entailed, tried starting rumours that it was a fake bump. Cheryl stripped down to next to nothing in the lunchroom to prove it wasn’t. 

So the Blossom babe really was pregnant. It was all anyone could talk about. But all Archie had to do was deny it was his and everyone would have believed it. Even if Cheryl was pregnant, who was going to take her scheming, manipulative word over pure, wholly good Archie’s word?

But Archie didn’t deny that Cheryl’s teen pregnancy could have been caused by him. Betty and Veronica were shocked. On the few occasions that Archie had had Cheryl on his arm instead of one of them, she’d obviously been doing more for him on their dates than either of them ever had.

Reggie and co., not satisfied with the chaos already surrounding them, then started the nasty rumour that the baby was probably her brother Jason’s spawn. Though started wasn’t really the right term: that had always been a rumour with those two. Twins were inherently creepy, and the closeness of the opposite gender Blossom twins was extra creepy. Rumours of twincest had been whispered around locker rooms and between bathroom stalls for years.

It was reignited with this physical evidence. Jason touching his sister’s stomach in the hallways between classes only worked to feed the fire of the rumour. 

But once again, Archie didn’t deny it. Archie even went so far as to do the honourable thing. He asked Cheryl to marry him. And she said yes. 

One Monday in the early spring they returned to Riverdale High as Mister and Missus Archie Andrews.

They had a quick marriage, the two sets of parents the only guests, since the two were only seventeen and needed parental consent to legally get married. Reggie got a good laugh over that. How romantic that ceremony must have been. Betty bit her tongue to keep from agreeing, but Veronica openly did. The distain she held for the two was loud and constant.

But after the shock of first hearing the news, and then the shock of the hasty marriage, the drama began to fizzle out. Cheryl was pregnant. Archie was the father. She would give birth to the most ginger baby that would ever exist sometime in late August. The two of them would finish their last year of high school through the private tutors the Blossom parents were already bragging about having so they could stay close to the baby. 

The news wasn’t news anymore. Just fact. There was very little to sustain the intrigue like before. Regular life returned and the school year ended as normally as it would have before.

As normally as it would have before for everyone but the now Archie-less Archie gang that was.

They parted ways at the start of summer for what was probably the last time. Jughead was losing his best friend. Reggie the group that tolerated him when even his minions wouldn’t. Betty and Veronica lost their love life. And their friendship.

“Only if we let it end,” Betty chirped as optimistically as she could as her and Veronica cleared out their lockers on the last day. “I think we need to be friends now.” 

“Out of spite to Archie?” Veronica asked. 

“No, not out of spite. Just so we’re friends. Actually friends.”

“If you say so, honey.” Veronica said with a sigh as she slammed her eleventh grade locker closed for the last time. “Shall we make plans for Pop’s?”

“When?” The hope in Betty’s voice was palpable. Too bad Veronica had set out to dash it.

“How about last year? When Cheryl wasn’t preggers with a bouncing baby Archie?”

“Ronnie–”

“No Betty, stop with the platitudes, would you? We’re not friends. Never have been, I don’t think we ever will be. So let’s just call the time of death of whatever we do have here and now, okay?”

Betty dropped her eyes but didn’t say anything to contradict what Veronica was saying. It proved what Veronica was saying as true as far as she was concerned.

“Alright then. See you around next September. Have a good summer.”

Veronica stormed off and Betty stared after her, wanting to follow but knowing she had no real reason to. Summer was going to be long and lonely.


	3. Chapter 3

Summer break was as arduous as Betty had predicted. She had baseball games and volunteer work and a new car fresh from the junk yard to fix and soup up. But she didn’t have any friends and the time she spent thinking about how she didn’t have any friends dragged past gruesomely slow.

Archie had moved in with the Blossoms and was no longer just across the white picket fence that had been the biggest barrier between them since they were five. Jughead was so despondent at the loss of Archie that all he did was sit at Pop’s and eat. Well, that had been all he’d done before, but now he did it silently, without even a comic book in front of him. Reggie sometimes texted her to invite her along somewhere, but most of Reggie’s fun was at least a misdemeanour and Betty didn’t need a record tarnishing her chances at an Ivy League school. And Veronica? As active on social media as she’d ever been, but ignoring all the texts and calls and Snapchat stories Betty sent her.

But then, one day on Instagram, Veronica liked one of Betty’s pictures! It was of her looking a complete mess from being under a car half the day, one of the update pictures she’d posted on the progress of her new car. It had to have been Veronica because Veronica’s PR person never liked pictures that were from Ronnie’s small town side of life.

A month and a half of friendless solitude must have Veronica feeling the same way as Betty. Maybe they could be friends after all! Betty went into her contacts, pulling up Ronnie’s number, eager to strike up a much needed conversation. But a wave of anxiety hit her, leaving her thumb hovering over the call button.

Veronica Lodge couldn’t possibly be as lonely as Betty was. Just yesterday she (or her PR person) had posted a picture of her partying with the Kardashian clan. She had friends outside of Riverdale. She had parties and jet-setting and millions of Twitter followers.

No. There was just no way Veronica Lodge was as lonely as Betty Cooper was. The like on her car photo must have been a finger slip as she scrolled through her feed to interact with more glamourous people.

Betty slipped her phone back into her pocket and set to the task of replacing her new car’s transmission system to distract herself.

_________________________

It was from Veronica! Confirmed later that night when she texted Betty herself, asking her how she was. Betty ended up texting back lightning quick, saying she was good and how she was fixing up a new car but pretty starved for friendly contact.

Truly desperate, Betty knew. Veronica knew too, texting back _lol, thirty much?_ But it was contact! Contact Betty thought she’d never get again from Veronica after how they’d parted ways at the end of the school year.

         

< _How’s your summer? Your Instagram is making me seriously jealous! >_

_< Of course it is, that’s the goal my PR person set out to accomplish.>_

_< So you’re not touring the French country side? Or lounging on tropical beaches? Or partying with the Kardashians?>_

_< I’ve spent most of July in New York actually. Designing a line of prom dresses.>_

_< For store shelves? Or do you intend to make our prom a multi dress affair? lol>_

_< A girl must have some secrets, Betty dear ;)>_

 

That was all Betty got that night. But by the next morning she awoke to a text invitation to brunch at the Lodge Manor and she gladly accepted. She texted back in such a flurry nearly every word had an extra couple letters in them.

Veronica was right, she _was_ thirsty! But a short drive to the other side of town would soon quench the thirst.


End file.
